And he returned from following him and took the yoke of oxen and sacrificed them and boiled their flesh with the yokes of the oxen and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he arose and went after Elijah and assisted him. 1 Kings 19:21
Occasionally, I’ll meet with those who want to quit using drugs, but who remain unwilling to get rid of the paraphernalia they’ve used to consume the drug. That’s not a good sign. It tells me they’re toying with the idea of abstinence, but they’re not committed to it. They want to keep the door open just a crack, just in case they must go back for some reason. It’s an attachment to the old life that precludes them from moving on to the new one, and as long as they keep one foot in the old life, they’ll never be free. Maybe I’ll go back . . .
The opposite of this approach is: No going back now. This is the attitude illustrated by Elisha in today’s passage. In the story, the prophet Elijah visited Elisha, calling him to come be a prophet of God. In response, Elisha took the oxen he’d been using for farming, slaughtered them, cooked them, and provided what must have been a great feast to his community. He’d been a farmer, but no more. Now he was going to be a prophet and even if he wanted to go back, he’d just killed all his oxen. No going back now.
This is an attitude I must cultivate if I truly want to be free. As long as I keep open the option of the old life, I’ll never be free of it. If I truly want to enjoy the new life, then the old one must die. This isn’t easy though. The longer I spent in that old life, the more it became a part of me and to kill it is to kill a part of myself. Also, this isn’t something I did only once, years ago. The old life has a way of trying to creep back. So, daily, I must take any remnant of the old life to God, asking what I must do to leave it behind.
This will look different for each of us. Maybe it means getting rid of drug paraphernalia. Maybe it means going to a dumb phone so we can’t look at porn as easily. Whatever it is, we must identify what we must do to abandon the old life. And then we must do it. No going back now.